DP-900 Practice Test 2 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A company uses Azure SQL Database and needs to audit all data modifications (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) for compliance purposes. The audit logs must be stored for 7 years. Which feature should they enable?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

SQL Database auditing. SQL Database auditing captures all data modifications (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) and can store logs in Azure storage, Log Analytics, or Event Hubs with retention up to 7 years. Option A is wrong because Advanced Threat Protection detects suspicious activities, not audits modifications. Option C is wrong because vulnerability assessment scans for security weaknesses, not logging changes. Option D is wrong because Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) encrypts data at rest, it does not log modifications.

Answer

Advanced Threat Protection

Answer

Vulnerability assessment

Answer

Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)

Question 2

Refer to the exhibit. You create an external table in Azure SQL Database. Which data source is being used?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage. The exhibit shows an external table referencing a data source with the LOCATION set to 'https://mystorage.blob.core.windows.net/...', which is the endpoint for Azure Blob Storage. In Azure SQL Database, external tables are created over external data sources that point to Azure Blob Storage or Azure Data Lake Storage, but the URL format 'blob.core.windows.net' specifically indicates Azure Blob Storage. The CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statement uses this data source to read data stored as files (e.g., CSV, Parquet) in the blob container.

Answer

Azure Files

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Answer

Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

Question 3

A company stores three types of data: 1) Customer orders in a SQL table with fixed columns for OrderID, CustomerID, and OrderDate. 2) Product reviews in XML files where each file contains varying tags such as and . 3) Video files of product demonstrations. Which of the following correctly classifies these data types in order from first to third?

Accepted Answer

Structured, Semi-structured, Unstructured. Customer orders in a SQL table with fixed columns (OrderID, CustomerID, OrderDate) are structured data because they conform to a rigid schema. Product reviews in XML files with varying tags like and are semi-structured data because they have tags/metadata but no fixed schema. Video files of product demonstrations are unstructured data because they lack any predefined data model or organization.

Answer

Semi-structured, Unstructured, Structured

Answer

Unstructured, Structured, Semi-structured

Answer

Structured, Unstructured, Semi-structured

Question 4

Which TWO factors should you consider when choosing between Azure SQL Database and SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines?

Accepted Answer

Compatibility with on-premises SQL Server features. Option C is correct because SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines runs the full SQL Server engine on an IaaS VM, so it supports the broadest compatibility with on-premises SQL Server features (for example, cross-database queries, SQL Server Agent, CLR, FILESTREAM, and specific legacy features) that Azure SQL Database may not fully support in its PaaS model. Option E is correct because the two services differ fundamentally in administrative control: SQL Server on Azure VMs gives you OS-level and instance-level control (patching, configuration, sysadmin rights, custom settings), while Azure SQL Database is a fully managed PaaS where Microsoft handles most administration and limits control. Options A, B, and D are not the deciding factors: auditing, geo-replication, and Transparent Data Encryption are capabilities available in both Azure SQL Database and SQL Server on Azure VMs, so they do not differentiate the two choices.

Answer

Need for database auditing

Answer

Support for geo-replication

Answer

Need for Transparent Data Encryption

Question 5

A global e-commerce company uses Azure SQL Database for its product catalog. The database is hosted in the West US region. To ensure the catalog remains available if West US experiences an outage, the company wants to configure a secondary database in East US that can be used for reads and can be automatically promoted to primary during a disaster. They require a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than 5 seconds and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of less than 30 minutes. Which feature should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Auto-failover groups. Auto-failover groups (Option B) are the correct choice because they provide automatic, orchestrated failover of a primary Azure SQL Database to a secondary region (East US) during an outage, meeting the RPO of less than 5 seconds (typically 5–10 seconds for active geo-replication) and RTO of less than 30 minutes (usually under 1 hour). The secondary database can be used for read-only queries, and the failover group ensures the entire group of databases fails over as a unit, maintaining the same connection string.

Answer

Active geo-replication

Answer

Geo-restore

Answer

Transactional replication

Question 6

A company is migrating an on-premises SQL Server database to Azure. They want to ensure that database administrators (DBAs) can perform administrative tasks but cannot view sensitive customer data in query results. Which Azure SQL feature should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Always Encrypted. Always Encrypted ensures that sensitive data is encrypted at all times, including during query processing, and that the encryption keys are never revealed to the database engine. This allows DBAs to perform administrative tasks (e.g., backups, index maintenance) while being unable to view the plaintext data in query results, because the decryption occurs only on the client side.

Answer

Dynamic Data Masking

Answer

Transparent Data Encryption

Answer

Row-Level Security

Question 7

A data analyst needs to run ad-hoc SQL queries on petabytes of data stored as Parquet files in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. The queries are infrequent but must return results within seconds. The analyst wants to pay only for the amount of data processed and does not want to manage any compute infrastructure. Additionally, they need to create views to simplify future reporting in Power BI. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool. Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool is the correct choice because it allows querying petabytes of data in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 using standard T-SQL without provisioning any compute infrastructure. It charges only for the amount of data processed per query (pay-per-query model) and supports creating views for Power BI reporting, meeting all stated requirements.

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Answer

Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL pool

Answer

Azure HDInsight with Spark

Question 8

A company runs a customer-facing web application that uses an Azure SQL Database. The database experiences highly variable workloads: high traffic during business hours and low traffic at night and on weekends. The company wants to pay only for the compute resources consumed and automatically scale compute capacity based on demand, while maintaining the ability to pause during inactivity. Which Azure SQL Database service tier should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Serverless. The Serverless tier is designed for workloads with variable traffic and idle periods, as it automatically scales compute resources based on demand and can pause the database during inactivity, charging only for consumed compute and storage. This matches the requirement to pay only for resources used and to pause when there is no traffic, such as at night and weekends.

Answer

Hyperscale

Answer

Provisioned (General Purpose)

Answer

Business Critical

Question 9

A company runs an e-commerce application on Azure SQL Database. The Orders table has millions of rows. Queries that filter on CustomerID and order by OrderDate DESC are slow. The table currently has a clustered index on OrderID (the primary key). Which indexing strategy will most improve performance for these queries?

Accepted Answer

Create a nonclustered index on (CustomerID, OrderDate DESC) with included columns for other needed columns.. Creating a nonclustered index on (CustomerID, OrderDate DESC) with included columns allows the query to filter on CustomerID and sort by OrderDate in descending order using a single index seek, avoiding a sort operation. This leverages the index's key order to directly return rows in the desired order, which is critical for performance on large tables in Azure SQL Database.

Answer

Create a nonclustered index on CustomerID including OrderDate.

Answer

Rebuild the clustered index to be on CustomerID.

Answer

Create a nonclustered index on OrderDate.

Question 10

A data engineer needs to query data stored in CSV files in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 using T-SQL in Azure Synapse Analytics, without loading the data into the database. Which feature should they use?

Accepted Answer

External tables. External tables in Azure Synapse Analytics allow you to query data stored in files (such as CSV in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2) using T-SQL without loading the data into the database. They use the PolyBase engine to read the files directly, enabling on-the-fly querying of external data sources.

Answer

Materialized views

Answer

Stored procedures

Answer

Indexed views